Scholar’s tragedy to be lensed

Deepa Bharath

Its time has finally come.

It’s the story of a 26-year-old Newport Beach woman’s journey to a

country torn apart by war, strife and Apartheid. The tragedy of her

death and the inspiration of her hopes, her dreams and her desire to

see the world as a better place -- where people, cultures and

ideologies co-exist -- is set to hit the big screen.

The story of Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar, who was stoned and

stabbed to death in a South African town called Guguletu in 1993, is

being made into a movie and will star Reese Witherspoon as Amy.

Amy Biehl’s mother, Linda Biehl, who divides her time between her

own family in Newport and her adopted family in Cape Town, South

Africa, said she signed a deal with Universal Studios two weeks ago,

which will set the process in motion.

“It’s drama,” Linda Biehl said. “So, it’s fiction based on real

life.”

She initially signed a contract with a South African production

company called Video Vision, which in turn has signed with Universal,

explained Alan Grodin, an attorney for Anant Singh, who owns Video

Vision.

The screenwriter for the film will visit South Africa in the fall,

after which the film will start taking shape, he said.

“At this point, it’s premature to even talk about a timeline,”

Grodin said.

He would not release the contract’s financial terms.

Linda Biehl said she got paid “a little money” upfront and was

told that she would get a percentage of the budget after it is

determined, as well as a portion of the film’s profits.

She and her family have been reluctant to work out contracts with

the many film-production companies, which have approached her over

the last 11 years or so to make a movie out of Amy’s life, Linda

Biehl said.

“It’s not an easy thing to do, and we haven’t wanted to do it,”

she said. “But yes, it is a great story.”

Many documentaries have been made about Amy Biehl over the years,

including “Long Night’s Journey Into Day,” a documentary, which

showed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings. In these

hearings, the families of victims of race-related crimes got an

opportunity to meet the families of the perpetrators. It was a chance

for the perpetrators to earn amnesty by giving a full confession of

their crime.

Linda and her late husband, Peter Biehl, went to those hearings in

1997. The four men charged with murdering Amy Biehl were given

amnesty in 1998. Two of those men work with the Amy Biehl Foundation,

which runs after-school and vocational programs for locals in Cape

Town.

Amy Biehl, a valedictorian at Newport Harbor High School, went to

South Africa on an exchange program from Stanford University, where

she had graduated with honors. In Cape Town, she was helping develop

voter-registration programs for black South Africans in preparation

for the country’s first democratic election set for April 1994.

On Aug. 25, 1993, Amy Biehl was driving three colleagues to their

homes when young men started throwing stones at her car. They

eventually surrounded the vehicle shouting “One settler, one bullet.”

They pulled Biehl out of the car and struck her on the head with a

brick even as she tried to run away. She was beaten and stabbed to

death. Biehl was supposed to go back home three days later and start

a graduate program at Rutgers University.

Those who analyzed the incident later maintained that the young

men, who felt provoked after an activist meeting, attacked Biehl

randomly. She was said to have been at the wrong place at the wrong

time.

Linda Biehl said she hopes the filmmakers will accurately

represent different sides of the story.

“I hope they’ll present the opportunity for people to learn,” she

said. “Film is a very powerful medium, and it has the capacity to

educate people.”

What spurred her decision to sign with Universal was the need to

maintain the foundation and its programs, Linda Biehl said.

“It’s a definite help to the fundraising effort,” she said. “We

could use it as a tool to keep things going.”

She has met Witherspoon and believes she is enthusiastic about

playing Amy, Linda Biehl said.

“She, too, graduated from Stanford, which was Amy’s alma mater,”

she said. “Reese has wanted to do this. She seems passionate about

this project, and I believe she will do a good job.”

The Amy Biehl Foundation is also in the process of building a golf

course for the local children in Cape Town, Linda Biehl said.

“A lot of the blacks there have been caddies to the white people,

but none of them have ever gotten to play golf,” she said. “That’s

our next project. To complete that facility and teach the kids to

play golf.”